


halcyon days

by senpen_banka



Category: Naruto
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Tenderness, Zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 08:06:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19194964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/senpen_banka/pseuds/senpen_banka
Summary: As the summer before Orochimaru's next body transfer wanes, Kabuto expresses concern about what comes next. Orochimaru prefers to focus on the sensory.





	halcyon days

**Author's Note:**

> my piece for loving dreamers: the gay naruto zine (lovingdreamers on twitter)! huge thank you to choujimaru on twitter for organizing this project!

Otogakure is still. It is one of those oppressively warm midsummer evenings, the air heavy with humidity around the forest hideout. Kabuto joins Orochimaru on the veranda as dusk falls, standing as Orochimaru sits enjoying a light dinner of sashimi. Orochimaru likes using this hideout during the summer; the underground hideouts, so insulated during the winter months, become stifling in the heat, all but baking their inhabitants. Sometimes, Kabuto entertains the ridiculous thought (which he’s heard circulate as a rumor) that Orochimaru is actually cold-blooded like a serpent. But he knows better.

As Orochimaru delicately folds his salmon over some wasabi, Kabuto observes their surroundings—the way dying golden daylight traces the carved edges of the mahogany balustrade, the faint buzzing of mosquitoes, the distant shape of a deer moving through the foliage below the balcony. This is one of the quieter forest regions in the Land of Sound, far from the paddy fields or any civilization, and the effect is disarmingly halcyon. He wishes he could enjoy it, but something is weighing on his mind, his head aching from heat and agitation.

Orochimaru appears to take notice: “You ought to eat something.”

Kabuto glances down as Orochimaru shakes back the long sleeve of his yukata, careful not to drip soy sauce on the cream-colored linen. “What makes you suggest that?”

“You’re making the face you always do when you have a headache. I can only assume those long hours in the lab have left you dehydrated and malnourished.”

Kabuto smiles a little. “I believe it’s my job to worry about your health, Orochimaru-sama, not the other way around.” His gaze flickers over to the plate of raw salmon and tuna. “Besides, I don’t care for sashimi.”

Orochimaru gives a small mournful sigh. “Right, you prefer meat that’s been salted and grilled into oblivion. All these years and you never developed a more sophisticated palate.” Eating his last piece of fish with shiso and daikon, he muses after a moment, “Something else is troubling you, then.”

It’s not atypical for Orochimaru to prod at him like this, treating his psyche like another science experiment, another inscrutable mystery to be solved. _What’s the matter, Kabuto_ or _You seem hesitant, Kabuto_ or _Do you have something to say, Kabuto_. As though Kabuto’s interior life is the most fascinating thing in the world. Sometimes, however, it’s a test, and right now Kabuto isn’t sure whether he wants to broach this particular subject. But if not now, when Orochimaru is so wholly at leisure, then when? “It’s the boy.”

Orochimaru chuckles, setting down his chopsticks and brushing some hair away from his face; Kabuto watches his long fingers glide through the silk strands. “Good gracious, Sasuke-kun again? You think of nothing else. Very well, what sort of property damage has he caused this time?”

The flippancy, Kabuto recognizes, is just a form of denial. And beneath that thin veneer of denial lies defensiveness. Expressing concern must be done with caution, like approaching a lion in its den (or a snake in its burrow). One misstep could be fatal. He keeps his tone removed, clinical, as though diagnosing a problem he couldn’t care about one way or the other: “You ought to consider keeping him on a shorter leash.”

Orochimaru does not react for a moment, and then he smiles. Wryly amused. “And pray tell, what would that look like to you, Kabuto?”

He is treading water now, being humored in the afterglow of a good meal. While he would prefer to be taken seriously, it’s at least better than Orochimaru raising his hackles. Best to keep choosing his words carefully. “You’ve allowed him these past three years to roam around unsupervised, cause whatever manner of destruction he’s pleased, and I”—he falters, because now he’s bullshitting—“understand it was to prevent him from feeling stifled, but all the same. You’ve trained him very well, endowed him with skills that he never could have fostered on his own, even in all his natural aptitude.” Softening a warning with praise is possibly a transparent gesture, but in his experience it’s proven effective. “I think the time has come to start restricting his freedom a bit. Remind him that the time for him to uphold his end of the bargain is imminent.”

Orochimaru nods, hums thoughtfully. “You’ve nursed these concerns for some time,” he observes.

“It’s my job,” Kabuto says, a hint of defensiveness creeping in. “Someone has to _nurse these concerns_.”

He sees Orochimaru raise an eyebrow, and he realizes he has allowed the heat and his headache to make him testy, and he is about to apologize when Orochimaru says, “Sit down and have a drink with me, Kabuto.”

“Orochimaru-sama?”

“Drink with me while this sake is still cold, Kabuto. It will make you feel better than nagging me will.”

“I don’t nag you because I derive enjoyment from it—I don’t _nag_ you at all, my job is to advise—”

“Kabuto,” Orochimaru says gently, “sit down and have a cup of sake or I will lose my patience and stab you in the trachea.” It’s an empty threat, but Kabuto doesn’t feel like calling the bluff. Wordlessly, he sits opposite Orochimaru at the small table and twists open the bottle of sake, pouring it into the black ceramic tokkuri. He serves them both, and Orochimaru lifts his cup. “Cheers.”

“This is coercion.”

Orochimaru shrugs, says, “Have it your way,” and drinks. Reluctantly, Kabuto follows suit. The sake is smooth, refreshing, and not too sweet. “I prefer a dry sake, don’t you?”

His own patience wearing dangerously thin, Kabuto replies, “I don’t have much of an opinion, Orochimaru-sama. I don’t know why you insist on trying to wheedle culinary conversation out of me when there are more pressing matters at hand.”

“Because, my dear,” Orochimaru says, already refilling his cup, “if I am going to live forever, then I am going to take my time enjoying my food and drink.” After taking another graceful sip, he adds, “A better question might be why I am trying to wheedle culinary conversation out of you specifically. I’d have more luck waxing philosophical with the gibbons.”

“You’re welcome to try,” Kabuto snaps. “Maybe they can help coordinate your next body transfer, too.”

“Stop sulking and drink more, or I’ll consider it.”

To appease him, Kabuto obliges. However, immediately after he has finished his second cup, he demands, “Why are you so determined to avoid this conversation? It has to be had sooner or later. In just a few months’ time, this vessel is going to fail you, and we have to be ready to reign Sasuke in if need be. Or we preempt the issue and bring him to heel now.”

Orochimaru pauses in the middle of raising his own cup to his lips, and Kabuto watches as he silently inspects its contents. The sake is clear, its surface shimmering faintly in its dark container; Kabuto gets the impression that Orochimaru is not looking _at_ it so much as _through_ it, weighing something in his mind. As if on cue, a gibbon cries out somewhere in the forest, punctuating the ambient birdsong, insect sounds, and slight rustle of leaves in the still air. Muted, not at all cacophonous, background noise. And perhaps it’s the sun on his arms, or the small quantity of expensive alcohol, but despite himself, he is slowly beginning to answer his own question. The longer he sits here, the less _he_ wants to talk about it. _You’re being tricked_ , he chides himself. Yet he finds himself thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible to sit here in the waning sunlight and listen to Orochimaru play the antique koto he has such an infuriating aptitude for. (Science, art, music—he shouldn’t be allowed so many proficiencies.) Kabuto thinks he could actually doze off that way, could set his endless litany of _concerns_ aside for just one evening.

As if reading his thoughts—always, always playing him so easily—Orochimaru suggests after a minute, “Surely we don’t have to talk about it _tonight_.”

And then, suddenly, Orochimaru coughs. Whatever tension had lifted from Kabuto’s shoulders returns with a vengeance as he sees Orochimaru start forward and cover his mouth with his free hand, spilling a few drops of sake onto his lap. “Ah—” He curses under his breath, setting down his cup and reaching for a napkin, even as one or two smaller coughs rack his chest. He dabs at the fabric of his yukata, and Kabuto sees a crease in his brow that was not there moments before. And something else, something in his amber eyes: a frustration, a cold and quiet anger, a helplessness that he resents. Kabuto understands then.

He reaches for Orochimaru’s left hand, intertwining their fingers. When Orochimaru meets his gaze, Kabuto nods and agrees, “Not tonight.” To be nice, he adds, “Relaxing probably won’t kill me.”

Orochimaru smiles at this, his eyes warming again with gratitude, and it takes Kabuto several seconds to register that he is smiling faintly back. “You’re certain?” Orochimaru teases, clearing his throat to dispel the lingering hoarseness. “I don’t know that your system can withstand the shock.”

“I know how to relax.”

“My dear, I assure you, you don’t.”

Kabuto glances down at their hands, giving a small squeeze. Tonight, more than in recent nights, he is struck by the relative frailty of Orochimaru’s grasp, but he is not going to think about that. Not tonight, not tonight. “Fortunate that I have such a persistent teacher, then.”

Chuckling softly, Orochimaru replies, “You ought to be in a war or two. That will teach you to seize whatever moments of peace and quiet that you can. But you’re too young to know.”

“I don’t think I would do well in a war.”

Orochimaru shakes his head. “No. You wouldn’t.”

Kabuto lifts their hands and brushes his lips against Orochimaru’s knuckles, just once, and Orochimaru smiles again. Warm light floods the veranda as the sun sets through the trees, turning wooden floor panels a vivid orange and Orochimaru’s eyes into pure gold. “I think I’m all right exactly where I am,” Kabuto says.

For a moment, Orochimaru just looks at him with something unreadable, even to Kabuto, in his gaze. Then he leans forward, over the small table, and Kabuto meets him halfway. While they are joined, sake on their lips and the summer heat covering them like a shroud, the inevitability of autumn feels lifetimes away. And when Orochimaru murmurs, “I think you are, too,” Kabuto forgets everything else in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> to those wondering (and I realize there are a few of you bc of the comments I've read kjdfghjkfgd): I DO have plans to continue updating my other fic projects! I hope to be a little more active over the summer once I get settled at my new job, which should have me working fewer hours. thank you SO much for your kudos and comments - they mean so much to me even when I'm not able to respond right away, and they keep me motivated to write for you guys! I hope to have slaked my audience's desire for kabuoro a tiny bit with this piece hrghjfdj
> 
> as always, comments and kudos greatly appreciated!!


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